Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness, and scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all people seem to do when conscious of having neglected that duty themselves. Then she showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen; and then she poured forth her gratitude for her many blessings, as she always did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that if at her age I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider myself a blessing to any man. After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he admired so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him. Then I told him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the confession of the criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful now. I repeated that strange and gloomy tale, to the loud accompaniment of a rising wind and roaring sea, while both my friends listened intently. “Now what can have led him so to come to you?” they asked; “and what do you mean to do about it?” “He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not be made in my cousin's lifetime. But the telling of his tale made him feel so strange that he really could not remember what it was. As to what I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is beyond my decision.” Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped, looking dutifully at her lord. “There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way,” the Major said. “You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey the laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder--no matter whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go.” “How could I help it?” I pleaded, with surprise. “It was impossible for me to hold him.” “Then you should have shot him with his own pistol. He offered it to you. You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and told him that he was a dead man if he stirred.” “Aunt Mary, would you have done that?” I asked. “It is so easy to talk of fine things! But in the first place, I had no wish to stop him; and in the next, I could not if I had.” “My dear,” Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view of the subject, “I should have done exactly what you did. If the laws of this country ordain that women are to carry them out against great strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured, why, it proves that women ought to make the laws, which to my mind is simply ridiculous.” CHAPTER LIV BRUNTSEA DEFEATED